Assassins Descend and Positions Are Set

The afternoon in West City was bright, the sunlight reflecting off the glass curtain walls of the Capsule Corporation headquarters with a blinding glare.

Lin Fan had just emerged from the underground laboratory and was thinking of heading to the convenience store across the street for a drink and a breath of fresh air—after spending so much time in the Gravity Room and the Pill Factory, even the air he breathed carried a metallic, herbal tang.

As soon as he stepped onto the plaza in front of the company gates, a bone-chilling sense of crisis surged through his entire body like a high-voltage current!

The spiritual intuition honed by the Great Dao Source Scripture shrieked with unprecedented intensity!

Almost simultaneously, a low, oppressive whistling sound descended from the sky!

Lin Fan jerked his head up!

A black dot was rapidly enlarging in the high altitude, accompanied by a teeth-grinding sonic boom!

It wasn't a flight vehicle at all, but a massive stone pillar!

At the top of the pillar, a figure clad in a white martial arts uniform with meticulously groomed long hair stood with hands behind his back, looking down with an indifferent gaze, as if a god were surveying ants!

BOOM—!!!

The stone pillar slammed into the center of the plaza like a meteorite, shattering the reinforced concrete ground as if it were fragile biscuit and sending debris flying everywhere!

Dust billowed into the sky, forming a brief mushroom cloud!

A powerful shockwave carrying shards of stone swept outward, stinging Lin Fan's cheeks and forcing him to raise his arms to shield his face.

The dust slowly settled.

Mercenary Tao remained standing atop the stone pillar, not a single speck of dust touching his clothes.

He adjusted his sunglasses (which he had somehow put on), his cold gaze piercing through the dust to lock precisely onto Lin Fan.

There was no anger or contempt in that look, only the absolute indifference one might show toward a dead object.

He slowly raised a hand, pointing a finger at Lin Fan. His voice was not loud, yet it pierced through the noise of the plaza like a cold steel needle, pinning itself to Lin Fan's eardrums:

"Lin Fan."

"Your existence defiles the purity of the martial way."

"I am the world's number one assassin, Mercenary Tao."

"By order of the Crane School, I am here to eliminate you."

"The timer starts now. You have... ten seconds to breathe."

There was no superfluous chatter, no explosive display of aura, and he couldn't even sense much "Ki" (as it was completely internalized), but the bone-deep killing intent and the absolute disparity in strength manifested as a terrifying, suffocating pressure that instantly enveloped Lin Fan!

Lin Fan's heart nearly stopped beating!

His blood felt as though it were freezing in his veins!

Strong! Unimaginably strong!

Far beyond Tien Shinhan, and even beyond Son Goku after his return from training at the Lookout!

This pressure was pure, born for slaughter, and possessed an unreasonable, overwhelming power!

Even if the reading on his Battle Power Detector wasn't astronomical, the implication of death it represented was heavy enough to suffocate him!

He couldn't fight this!

He would absolutely die!

This thought hit him like a bucket of ice water, snapping Lin Fan out of his initial shock.

Run!

He had to run!

Almost the moment Mercenary Tao finished speaking, Lin Fan lunged to the side!

At the same time, he flipped his wrist and slammed a Hoi-Poi Capsule—one Bulma had shoved into his hands, marked with a car icon—onto the open ground in front of him!

Bang! White smoke exploded, and a sleek, high-speed hover-sports car instantly appeared!

"Start! Emergency escape mode!"

Lin Fan roared with all his might, diving into the open door like a fish.

At nearly the same moment, Mercenary Tao, standing on the pillar, casually formed his hand into a blade and, from dozens of meters away, made a light sweeping motion toward the car!

Sshhh—!

A condensed, nearly invisible blade of Ki tore through the air with a sharp hiss, slashing toward the car at a speed the naked eye could barely track!

Wherever it passed, it plowed a deep trench into the ground!

In the nick of time!

The car's engine let out a violent roar, azure ion streams erupted from its rear, and it surged forward!

The Ki blade grazed the tail of the car, silently slicing a signature metal sculpture of the company behind it into two, the cross-section as smooth as a mirror!

"Oh? Not bad speed."

Mercenary Tao raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised by the speed of this "toy," but his tone remained flat. "Pity. Still too slow."

His figure flickered, vanishing from the stone pillar like a ghost, and in the next instant, he appeared at the edge of the plaza, his speed as fast as teleportation!

He raised his hand again!

Lin Fan's scalp tingled as he pushed the Wind Control Art to its limit—not for flight, but to perceive the trajectory of the life-reaping blade of True Qi behind him!

Simultaneously, he yanked the steering wheel, and the sports car swerved into a narrow street between buildings at an angle so sharp it nearly flipped!

BOOM!

Another blade of True Qi shredded an entire billboard at the street corner along with the wall behind it!

"Calculate an evasive route! Head toward the complex old town district!"

Lin Fan roared at the car's computer, his palms slick with cold sweat. He had never felt death closing in so tightly!

"Understood, Mr. Lin Fan!"

The car's intelligent assistant replied in a calm, electronic voice. The sports car accelerated instantly, weaving, drifting, and making sharp turns through the complex city streets, using every building as cover.

Mercenary Tao's figure clung to him like a maggot on a bone, always hanging back at a distance neither too far nor too close.

He wasn't even pursuing at full speed; like a cat playing with a mouse, he would occasionally flick out a blade of True Qi to shave off a corner of the car or sever the road ahead, forcing the vehicle to constantly change direction.

He was savoring the thrill of the hunt.

Lin Fan's mind raced—at this rate, he would be caught sooner or later! He had to buy time!

While maneuvering the vehicle, he frantically dug into the storage compartment, pulling out a few dead batteries, some alloy rods of unknown properties, and even a handful of failed medicinal pills.

The speed was too high for careful setup; he could only act in haste!

He flung the handful of failed pills and dead batteries out the window toward the rear, his consciousness highly focused as his hands struggled to form a simple illusion seal, injecting a wisp of True Qi into the debris!

"Crude Maze Formation! Activate!"

He then snapped an alloy rod in half, rapidly carved a few distorted runes onto it with his True Qi, and hurled it toward another intersection!

"Disturbance Talisman! Detonate!"

These methods were crude and pathetic, barely qualifying as real formations or talismans; at best, they were mere sleights of hand and tiny explosives infused with a sliver of his consciousness and True Qi.

Mercenary Tao, trailing behind, was about to unleash another blade of True Qi when his vision suddenly blurred; it was as if three or four phantom images of the sports car had appeared at once, making the true direction impossible to discern!

At the same time, a negligible explosion and flash erupted from a side alley!

"Hmm?"

Mercenary Tao's movements stalled for a fraction of a second. For the first time, his icy expression showed a subtle ripple—not of surprise, but of... impatience, as if bothered by a fly.

"Boring tricks."

He didn't even bother to distinguish the illusions; he simply slashed out an even more powerful blade of True Qi toward the direction where Lin Fan's aura was strongest!

RUMBLE!

An innocent building was sliced in half at the waist, its upper section sliding off with a deafening, thunderous collapse!

The illusions shattered instantly!

Lin Fan saw this through the rearview mirror, his heart sinking further. The gap in strength was simply too vast!

These petty tricks couldn't even delay him for a single second!

The sports car narrowly dodged the falling debris and surged into the narrower streets of the old town district.

Mercenary Tao's figure remained like the Grim Reaper, following at a leisurely pace, seemingly curious to see what other tricks this bug could pull.

Lin Fan gritted his teeth. While fleeing frantically, he ignored the cost and continued to set up one crude illusion formation and Trap Talisman after another... even if it only interfered with his pursuer for a tenth of a second!

He was racing against time, struggling in the face of despair!

And Mercenary Tao, it seemed, had finally lost his remaining patience.

"Game over."

His cold voice, like a death sentence, rang clearly in Lin Fan's ears once more.

The lethal killing intent suddenly spiked to its peak!